The Tomb Triad
by satellitestorm
Summary: Meet Kate, Cordon and Xis. For their first adventure, they're heading off into a burial tomb without any naggy authority figures to stop them. As the route splits into three, each of them will have to show us what they're made of if they all want to make it back in one piece! (A simple adventure fic.)
1. The Entrance

An isolated burial tomb stands in an obscure portion of desert, surrounded by harsh, swirling sands. It had the shape of a trapezoidal prism; like a pyramid cut from the side halfway up.

Three friends stood near the front entrance of the burial tomb; a Braixen, a Frogadier and a Quilladin. They were readying themselves to enter, but the inevitable question that had to be asked is, "Why?"

"Because it's there!" Kate the Braixen asserted her voice as she looked up at the tomb with confidence.

"Because there might be treasure," Cordon the Frogadier said while he rubbed his webbed hands together.

"Because it's a great place to start our first adventure!" Xis the Quilladin exclaimed with a large smile on his face.

"You'd think a grassland would be perfect for a first time adventure," Cordon said while shrugging and putting his hands out.

"Yeah, but we just have to take what we can get," Xis replied.

After the conversation had finished, Kate decided to move on to finally start the exploration.

"I think it's time to get this show on the road," Kate said as she took her first steps towards the old building. "Let's go." She beckoned for her friends to follow and flank behind her.

The front entrance was open and unguarded, which wasn't practical as it would send a formal invitation to thieves. However, it was good for Kate, Cordon and Xis, as they did not have to find a secret entrance using some sort of inane method.

As the trio peered into the burial tomb from the entrance, they could see that the interior was surprisingly well lit. There was a long corridor that extended for several meters, lined with evenly spaced torches on both of the sandstone brick walls. It looked disarmingly safe.

"Looks perfectly safe to me!" Xis said as he recklessly ran through the entrance and through the corridor, causing Kate to panic.

"No! Wait!" she wailed as she outstretched her arm out with futility.

But it was too late. Xis was already doomed to his fate... of reaching the end of the corridor completely intact. Not a single trap was sprung.

Kate let out a sigh of relief, while Cordon was indifferent. He had been like that the whole time, as if he didn't really care of what happened. Kate then ran through the corridor as quickly as she could, thinking that the speed would prevent any secret traps to trigger that were yet to be sprung. But that was disproved by Cordon; he just casually walked through the corridor, without a worry.

Cordon caught up with Xis and Kate while they were panting, silently and casually dropping a wave as he walked by.

"I wanted you to wait... because I wanted to go in first..." Kate wheezed in between pants.

"Sorry... I couldn't contain my excitement..." Xis said as he wiped a bead of sweat off his face. After recovering for a bit, the two met up with Cordon and looked around the room that they were in.

They were now in a rectangular room that was twice as wide as the corridor. From floor to ceiling were old, yellowed stone bricks that gave off a musty smell. The interior in general had that sort of atmosphere much like that of the burial tombs from the Earth country starting with the letter 'E'.

On the side opposite from the corridor were three open passageways; each was decorated with a color motif. The left one was red, the center one was blue and the right one was green. Everyone knew how this was going to pan out, so Cordon started taking the initiative.

"Well, see ya," he waved goodbye as he headed towards the blue passageway.

"Wait! I'm not ready yet!" Kate called out as she rushed towards the red passageway.

"So we're really going to split up?" Xis asked his friends as he made his way to the green passageway and looked over to the others. He felt rather concerned.

"Well there's three doors, and there's three of us, so..." he stated his reasoning.

"But who'll be there when a trap comes for you?"

"We'll be fine, Xis," Kate assured him with a smile. "I can guarantee that we'll be all back together in one piece."

After mulling it over for a little bit, Xis accepted her guarantee. He nodded at Kate and looked up ahead at his passageway with optimistic confidence.

"We'll enter when I say so," Kate said as she stuck out three digits of her paws. She then began counting down.

"3... 2... 1... Go!"

At the moment Kate said "Go!", the three headed deeper into their respective passageways.

* * *

**AN: All of the passageways are now available to read! Which one will you choose first? **


	2. The Red Passageway

As Kate was briskly walking through the corridor, she noticed the red walls that were streaked with orange and yellow to show vibrant flames. The torches on the walls were much more brighter compared to the corridor connecting the entrance to the separation chamber. Fire type Pokémon were crudely drawn onto the walls, who looked to be dancing and celebrating in the flames. 'Perhaps they were celebrating the fiery destruction of their adversities?' she thought to herself with interest and intrigue. But imagining such a thing had sent a shiver down her spine, so she began to run instead of briskly walking.

Now Kate was a hasty, intelligent Braixen who proclaims herself as the leader of the trio. She values her time here on this yet to named region very highly, wanting to fill every second with something meaning. As a result, she may come off as impatient and bossy, but she has a caring, sensitive side. We'll see as the series progresses.

As Kate reached the end of the corridor, she stopped just in time before a slope that lead deep into the underground. The slope was like a slippery slide, covered in some sort of transparent, slimy film that Kate inspected before wiping it off on the wall with disgust. Red arrows were painted at specific intervals along the slide in the downhill direction.

"Well, here goes nothing," she said as she sat on the corridor's sandstone floor with her legs over the slimy slide. With a push from her paws, she slid down the slide and accelerated at a frightening pace.

Kate was sliding so fast that it left a wake trail of slime behind her, spraying in a V-shape. At this speed, it was difficult to move around, but that wasn't necessary as the course was just a straight line as far as Kate could see.

At the exit, Kate was thrown into a pit of Goomy slime, which was sticky instead of slippery because it had been left there for many years. It was a practical, yet revolting way to slow one's momentum.

The stickiness was so strong that Kate was unable to stand; she had to struggle her way to the pool's edge and pulled on it as hard as she could in order to break away from the slime's pull. After a few minutes, she was finally free.

With gooey slime covering her entire body, Kate wasn't exactly the happiest of Braixens. In the room she was in, there wasn't a single water source anywhere, so she had to deal with it and move on. And the only place to move was to the adjacent room, so off she went.

As Kate stood under the doorway between the rooms, she could see that the new room was very dark. From the light provided by the slide exit room, she couldn't see any way to light it up.

While Kate was pondering, the sound of grinding stone was heard from both sides. The door was beginning to close in on her like an elevator would, so she jumped forward. Since the doors closed in so slowly, Kate wasn't really in any real danger; she spent about 10 seconds watching the sliver of light between the door getting thinner and thinner until there was complete darkness.

After unsticking herself from the floor, Kate stood up and walked backwards towards the closed door to put her back to it. From her astute hearing from her large ears, she could hear the sound of rushing wind and loud rumbling. Combined with the darkness, the atmosphere made Kate quite panicky and distraught.

"Hello?" she called out to the darkness without expecting any sort of reply.

She stuck herself against the wall, figuratively and literally, and tried to think of something that would ease her worries of any hostile life.

She then began to feel around her tail, in order to take out the stick that was placed in it. As she took it out, the stick ignited and quickly brightened up her surroundings.

Immediately, Kate noticed jars. A lot of jars. They were little ceramic jars with cute little lids at the top. But what's probably in them aren't so cute, considering this was a burial tomb and all. These jars were aligned neatly in rows, and with a quick calculation, Kate concluded that there were 719 jars altogether. These jars were surrounded by a border of raised sandstone tiles, so they seemed to be really important.

The other things that caught Kate's interest were the walls that were completely covered with inscribed symbols. To the unenlightened, they looked to be a bunch of gibberish. But Kate wasn't unenlightened.

"I think I've seen these before," she said to herself as she went over to one of the walls to study the symbols. The most eye-catching thing about them were that each of them had a circular part with tiny black dot in the middle; it looked like an eye. Flipping through the memory archives section of her mind, Kate realized that they were the Pokémon Unown.

Unown were black Pokémon that came in various shapes and sizes. And conveniently enough, they resembled the English Alphabet. And obviously, Kate knew her English Alphabet; she could say it backwards in half the time she could forwards (That was a compliment.)

So Kate wasn't completely in the dark about what was going on in the room. In fact, almost everything to Kate was as bright as a Dazzling Gleam.

But the one thing that wasn't was a way out of the room. But by reading the symbols, she thought, they might point her to the exit, directly or indirectly.

She started at the left side of the door that had locked her in, and began making her way clockwise around the chamber.

Unusually, a lot of the text had no place of being in a burial tomb. There were things like song lyrics, mushy love poems and even a fanfic. It was just so bizarre that Kate couldn't help being taken aback in shock.

It was only at the wall on the far opposite side of the entrance that Kate finally found something relevant. In between two haikus were a couple of phrases that looked to be clues.

"Count us"

"Organ Vessel"

"Region"

"So cryptic," Kate uttered as she recited the phrases over and over in her mind. She wanted a better place to decipher these clues, so she sat at the raised sandstone bricks and wedged her stick in between a gap between the bricks.

In the illuminated radius of the fiery stick, Kate took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began to focus with great concentration.

"_Now, let us begin deciphering the clues." she said aloud in her mind. _

"_First, let's begin with the phrase 'Count us'... what does 'us' really mean?"_

"_Considering it was written in the Unown language, I'm thinking that I have to **count the Unown.**"_

"_But there are so many of them on the walls! There must be an easier way!"_

"_Hmm... perhaps I could interpret 'count' in a different way?"_

_From 'Count Drapula' to Yarn counts, Kate tried to think of how the word could be used, but none of them were suitable._

"_It's no good," she continued to say aloud in her mind. "I've hit a dead end. Perhaps I should move on to the next clue."_

"_The next one is 'Organ Vessel'. Now unlike 'count', these two are much easier to interpret in different ways."_

"_Take 'Organ' for instance. Organ can refer to a musical instrument, or a part of the body, and a vessel can refer to a ship or a container. The jars in the room fit the description of a container, and considering this is a burial tomb, there are most likely body parts in them. Gross."_

"_So if I interpret this correctly, then the clue tells me I have to **perform an action with these jars. **I think this is where the third clue comes in."_

"_The third clue is 'Region'. I don't have to think too hard about this one, because if you think it out aloud, it says '**Reach in**'."_

"_So I have to **reach into one of these jars. But which one**? I'm not going to try every single one. Why? Because one, it might trigger a trap, and two, I don't want to risk touching a dead guy's guts."_

"_As I calculated before, there are 719 jars in the room. This number must symbolize something, but what?"_

"_Call it a coincidence or not, but it might be referring to the 719 species of Pokémon. Perhaps this might give me a new lead for the first clue."_

"_So if I want to count Unown, how does the number of Pokémon fit into this?"_

"_Out of curiosity, how do we know that there are 719 Pokémon in the first place? It's not like we can line up all the species in a row and count them. Like I count Bulbasaur as one, Ivysaur as two, and..."_

"_..."_

"_..."_

"_THAT'S IT!" she suddenly yelled in her head in sudden realisation. If she actually yelled, it probably would've caused the entire tomb to collapse._

"_Unown's count! That's it's Pokédex Number! I can't believe that actually got me somewhere! I'm a genius!" _

"_And a genius would definitely know Unown's Pokédex Number! It's **201**!"_

"_Now if I can bring all the pieces together, the clues will tell me what to do in a single statement! And that statement is..."_

"**Reach into the 201st Jar"**

With a purpose as clear as Clear Smog (as oxymoronic as that sounded), Kate stood up, broke away the sticky slime that bound her to her seating place, and marched over to the nearest jar. On the side of the jar was a number that read '654'. Unfortunately, it wasn't '1', but at least it was a start.

After a few minutes of searching, Kate found the 201st Jar. It was simple, brown and ceramic with a removable lid. She took off the lid and reached into the jar with her right arm without hesitation, as she had utmost confidence in her deduction.

And she had every right to do so; inside the jar wasn't a part of a corpse, but a pressure plate that she could push down on. And upon doing so, the part of the wall which had the clues inscribed revealed an opening.

"Yes! Finally!" she celebrated with both fists in the air, one free and one stuck in a pot, because well, you probably know by now. As she happily skipped towards the exit (with the fiery stick placed back into her tail), she showered herself with verbal praises of how much of a prodigy she was.

* * *

The new corridor had exactly the same look as the one before the slimy slide; it had torches, red walls and sandstone brick flooring. The difference was that at the end of the corridor were some blue figures that resembled Water Pokémon shooting out streams of water in order to douse the flames. The red figures were trying to defend themselves or were outright fleeing. In a way, it seemed like the red passageway was coming to an end.

What was also at the end of the corridor was a closed door with a red glowing jewel in the middle of it. She did the obvious thing of touching it, but nothing seemed to have happened.

It was only after several minutes that something did happen. As Kate spent those few minutes inspecting the intricacies of the door, the door opened by itself. There was white light through that door, and Kate wouldn't know what was on the other side unless she went through it.

And so she did. With great confidence in her wide knowledge base and sharp intellect, she felt prepared for what was to come.

* * *

**AN: You have two options here; you can proceed to the Final Chamber or choose another passageway to see the other character's POV. It's your choice.**


	3. The Blue Passageway

Cordon was walking through the corridor at a leisurely pace, his webbed hand dragging against a wall that was completely covered in blue, with darker blue lines painted on top; most of them were waves and the rest of them were Water-type Pokémon. The wall felt oddly smooth as opposed to the rough sandstone back at the room where they separated. Cordon wasn't too interested in the mural, as he was focusing on getting to the end.

Most of the time, Cordon was a laid back sort of Frogadier. But when you catch his attention with something, he'll commit towards getting it to no end. Otherwise, he'll let it pass by like a twig flowing downstream on a river. He's also quite full of sarcasm and snide; but we'll see as the series progresses.

The corridor lead to a wall with a tiny square hole that was large enough for a Frogadier to squeeze through. But before we get a freshly squeezed Frogadier, Cordon decided to look through the hole to see where it lead.

The hole lead to a long, narrow, vertical shaft leading down to another floor below. The shaft was unlit by itself; it was only partially lit by the light of the corridor and the floor below. Cordon also saw some some irregularly shaped indents in the shaft wall; they seem to be hand or foot holds for Pokémon to climb up and down with. Or in the worst case scenario, they might contain spears which could impale the victim.

Cordon decided that he just didn't give a Wormadam and climbed down the shaft. Even if he couldn't locate and hold onto the indents, his sticky webbed hands help him to cling onto the wall as he climbed downwards.

Throughout the whole 50 metres of descension, Cordon had an easy time making his way down. Such a thing was child's play to him; he had this sort of experience in the past.

At the bottom was another hole the same size as the one at the top shaft entrance, so Cordon squeezed through that. He then found himself in another blue-walled corridor, but this one lead to a trapezoidal door that opened from the middle.

As Cordon slowly approached the door, the door slowly opened by itself with the sound of grinding stone echoing into the corridor. And it did so again just as Cordon walked into the next room, leaving him without a way to backtrack. Dang.

The new room seemed unfinished, to say the least. There were unreachable floors and unfinished stonework; it was highly impracticable for a burial tomb. But so was the thin shaft; it makes you question the sanity of those burial tomb architects.

Cordon could hear the sound of rushing water nearby; it was in the direction of the highest ledge, which lead to the rest of the room. So if wanted to progress, he'd have to find a way up to that ledge.

But that would be too easy, according to Cordon. There's a whole room full of surfaces, and not using them for what they intended would be an utter waste. So Cordon was obliged to fulfill their purpose.

All he needed now was a running start.

As swift as Swift itself, he ran towards the wall furthest away from him, tucking his body in to streamline himself. He leapt at the wall and ran on it as if it was another floor, performed a backflip and landed on an isolated pillar without stumbling.

Nearby were some loose bricks sticking out to form a ledge, so Cordon made an effortless leap towards it. And when I meant nearby, I meant about 5 metres away. As I said, Cordon put in no effort to reach it.

The room was full of ledges like these, so Cordon leaped from ledge to ledge, getting slightly higher and higher with each progressive leap. And he did so very quickly too; just imagine a bouncy ball being launched from a light-speed slingshot.

For his final leap, Cordon was holding onto a branch nearby the final ledge. He wanted to finish off strong, so he decided to perform his own little stunt. Mustering the strength in his powerful legs, he swung back and forth, gathering more angular momentum with every swing. It came to the point until he could go a full revolution, and he continued to go faster and faster until the point where the branch was about the snap. At that critical point, he let go and performed several high speed backflips while he curled into a ball like a blue hedgefrog. He made his landing at the final ledge with bent knees, legs spaced apart and sported a confident look. It was an astounding three-point landing; which was such a shame, as I wanted to give it seven more points.

"Well, that was difficult," he sarcastically said as he stood up, not bothering to wipe off any sweat, because there wasn't any. He then started to casually walk as if nothing had happened.

The ledge lead to some ground higher up, at which Cordon discovered the source of the sound of the rushing water. There was a large underground stream flowing through the entire hallway that was in front of him. It started from the left side as a large waterfall, and exited out from the right through some grating. In the middle was a large mess of wooden planks; a bridge was probably intended to be placed here. But the ropes that suspended the planks were too high up as they were attached to pillars with a spiked top. If Cordon wanted to progress, he'd need some way of crossing the stream.

Whether by swimming across the stream or outright leaping across it, both ways are too easy according to Cordon. He needed to find a way challenging enough to satisfy him, and with a little looking around, he managed to find something that might lead him to it.

On the other side of the bridge was a door that looked the same as the one as he entered the room. That door was locked, but that wasn't the thing of interest for Cordon. It was the little tiny circles that looked like bullseyes above the door. These bullseyes were the centre of some lotuses painted on the wall. The stream's direction, indicated by the dark blue streaks, were flowing towards the exit. It was kind of symbolic in a way.

With a hit box 2.5cm/1 in. wide at a distance 30m/98ft away, it looked very difficult to hit. But that's from a human perspective; from a Frogadier's perspective, it was on the moderate side, leaning towards easy. And that was good enough for Cordon, so he considered the challenge accepted.

Now all he needed now was some ammo.

Looking at the ground around his feet, Cordon found some pebbles lying on the ground as a result of being chipped off from the sandstone. He picked six of them up (which was the exact number of targets that needed to be struck) and closed his webbed hand on them. When he opened his hand, each of them were covered in a bubble.

He intended to throw these bubble covered pebbles at the targets in a single throw. He could have thrown them immediately after he covered them in bubbles, but he decided to focus before he would throw. Why? Because it was cool, that's why.

Cordon closed his eyes and began to focus. With the rushing water gushing nearby, it seemed to be beneficial to his concentration, being near to his element. In his mind, he pictured the pebbles to be throwing stars, being readied to be thrown at the targets that were floating in the void.

He held the throwing stars at his left waist, adjusting it in minuscule amounts in order to prepare for the perfect throw. His hand was steady, and his body was steadfast. With a silent countdown, he released the stars into the void of imaginary space.

As the stars scattered out of Cordon's hand, they spread out from each other and began to head towards their individual targets. They all flawlessly weaved around the obstacles thanks to the side-spin Cordon applied for each of them.

The impact was shattering; literally and figuratively. All of the stars hit dead on the targets, and exploded into pieces on contact. As the imaginary void faded away, a shower of 'stardust' fell towards the ground.

"Hah. Perfect." Cordon dusted off his hands while making a smug smile.

After a few seconds, the pillars began to violently rumble and sink into the ground. Since the chains attaching the bridge planks and the pillars were at varying heights, each pillar was sunk until the entire bridge was level and safe to cross. The exit door opened up as well, and Cordon promptly made his way through.

* * *

The corridor past the exit had the same look as the one before the vertical shaft; the walls were painted entirely in blue with the waves and Pokémon included. The only difference was that near the end of the corridor, there were green and brown colours painted from top to bottom on the wall that represented the mainland. The light green figures (which were probably Grass-type Pokémon) were seen interacting with the Water-types in a playful manner. As the sea comes to an end as it reaches land, so too did the Blue Passageway.

At the end of the passageway was an intricately decorated door that had a blue glowing jewel in the middle. Experience has told Cordon to investigate anything that glows, so he did. But nothing seemed to have happened.

Several minutes went by, and still nothing happened. Although Cordon really wanted to get on with it as soon as possible, he decided to wait it out and take a break. As impractical as it was, perhaps waiting was the key to opening the door, he reasoned to himself.

20 minutes had now elapsed since Cordon touched the jewel. Cordon was lying on the wall, fast asleep with his arms crossed. At the 21st minute, the door began to open, and Cordon woke up in response.

On the other side of the door was white light; it was impossible to see what was on the other side unless he walked completely through the door. And so he did.

With his athletic abilities and his astounding accuracy, Cordon was confident in his strengths for what's to come up ahead.

* * *

**AN: You have two options here; you can proceed to the Final Chamber or choose another passageway to see the other character's POV. It's your choice.**


	4. The Green Passageway

Xis was slowly advancing through the thin corridor that was completely covered in green. There were some patterns etched onto it; most of them were wavy grass lines and the rest were Pokémon frolicking in enjoyment; whether it was running, talking or eating. It certainly sparked his curiosity, but he really couldn't comprehend them outside of that they were just drawings. Perhaps he should ask Kate about them sometime later.

Xis was an cheerful Quilladin who has an optimistic outlook towards everything. As loyal as a Growlithe, he will do anything in his will to protect his friends with his bulky wooden armor should any threat would try to confront them. However, his mental quills aren't exactly the sharpest, but we'll see as the series progresses.

The corridor lead Xis to a flight of stairs leading down deeper into the tomb. This sort of staircase was of the standard, no nonense variety; there were no slides of shafts or anything. Granted, this is a burial tomb after all.

Taking one step at a time, Xis steadily made his way downstairs with his pattering steps echoing throughout the corridor.

While he's doing that, let me ask you this random question. You know when you're walking down stairs and you miss a step, and you get that feeling of shock when you do? That's what exactly happening to Xis, right now.

Tumbling down the stairs like clothes in a dryer, Xis was being battered, but not bruised, against the surface of the sandstone steps. His tumble turned into a roll, and he did so like a roll of lavatory paper would when it rolls just like Xis does. They do both have one thing in common; and that is they are both heading for... I won't say it.

At the bottom of the staircase, Xis was lying face down on the ground, his foot twitching a bit. He immediately got back up on his feet by pushing against the ground and began checking for any sign of injury. If damaged morale was a sign of injury, then it'd be the only one, because he sustained no physical injuries. Not even his quills were bent out of shape after all that tumbling.

"Phew, I'm alive!" Xis exclaimed with a sigh of relief. He carefully looked at his surroundings before saying "I hope no one saw that."

After a few more seconds of looking for hidden cameras and the like, Xis continued making his way through the corridor and stopped at a trapezoidal door that looked like the burial tomb from outside. The door slowly opened by itself, as indicated by the sound of grinding stone.

Doors were made for going through, and Xis did just that. But what he didn't know was that this was a one-way door, as the door was now barred with some vertical metallic bars. Yikes.

The new room was a small circular room with a giant hole in the ceiling. On the opposite side of the barred door was another door that was shut exactly like it; that was definitely the way out. Unless there was some kind of gravity reverser, the hole was not a plausible way out. There was a sandpit in the middle of the room which was just as large as the hole above it. Faint lines were drawn on the sand so that it resembled a Pokéball.

Xis was curious about the giant hole on the ceiling, so he walked towards the center of the sandpit and looked up.

The hole was a vertical tunnel that had little illumination, but it was just bright enough that he could see was a tiny ball heading towards him, the size of a ping-pong ball.

If that fell on him, he thought, it wouldn't even make a scratch. Not even a thousand ping-balls. Not even a million ping-pong balls shot out from a machine gun.

However, the ping-pong ball grew larger, into a size of a tennis ball. Still not a problem, he thought.

Now it grew to the size of a bowling ball. Well, getting hit by one of those might kind of hurt...

Then it grew to a giant shadowy dumbbell... and that wasn't a ball at all! Xis had to get away from there!

Xis tried to escape from the warped shadow that was over him, but the sand partially trapped his legs, so he moved very slowly. He was only an inch away when it landed with a deafening thud.

The landing was so strong that the surrounding sand jumped upward for a brief moment before settling down. That happened to Xis as well, and he ended up buried in sand up to his middle. He also spat out a little bit of sand too.

As Xis looked up at the giant being that landed, he could clearly see it as clear as Sunny Day.

It was a Golurk; a 9' 2'' (2.8m) hulking mechanical robot that wielded a giant two-handed metal hammer. Oh, and it wears a skirt too.

It came to no surprise to Xis that it was hostile, so he tried to escape the sand pit before the mighty Golurk would bring down his hammer upon him. Digging out the sand with his claws, he freed himself from the sand and ran towards the edge of the sandpit. That is, until he hit a wall.

Yes, there was now a wall that enclosed the entire sandpit, so that the whole thing looked like an arena. The walls were made out of the same material as most of the tomb was made of (that is, sandstone), so it should be easy to climb out and escape. But when you've got a Golurk with a weapon that could double as a pancake maker, now that isn't so easy.

Xis tried to clamber up the walls as the Golurk held the hammer over his shoulder to prepare for an overhead swing. In reaction, Xis jumped off to the side to dodge the attack. The hammer blow left a crater in the sand next to the section of the wall Xis was climbing. Unfortunately, it didn't damage the wall, which would've allowed Xis to escape.

From this observation, we see that the hammer's range extends to the wall, which meant there were no safe spots. Xis had to keep running and dodging the Golurk's attacks and attempting (and failing) escape. This went on for several minutes.

15 minutes have elasped, and the Golurk showed no intention of stopping, as if it had infinite PP. There were so many attacks that there were overlapping craters everywhere, and the sand was crushed into finer grains. Xis had no intention of stopping either; but because he isn't a Golurk with infinite PP, he began to get rather exhausted."

"I can't dodge him forever..." Xis panted to himself while he dodged another blow. "What am I going to do?"

As contrived as it was, he saw a hammer lying half buried in the sand, the kind that plumbers with blue overalls would use. He ran over to it and picked it up with both claws.

It was like the Golurk's hammer, only smaller; it had a few cracks here and there, but it was a perfectly serviceable weapon. It was a surprise that it hadn't crumbled or shattered from the Golurk's attacks.

Speaking of attacks, the Golurk began to cease its usual overhead and sideways swings and decided to prepare for a spin attack, the kind that swordsmen in green tunics would do. But this one is **unavoidable**.

Xis only had a few seconds to decide what to do before he would be slammed by the hammer, breaking through the wall and falling unconscious underneath the rubble. As he gripped the hammer tightly in his claws, he knew that he had only one option, and that was to fight back.

It wasn't just for his survival that he wanted to fight back. It was for his friends, Kate and Cordon. Under their guarantee, he was assured that they would be all right when they all meet up again, and he wanted to hold up on his end.

Although Xis didn't have the intellect of a sage nor the agility of a ninja, what he had was the fighting spirit to rival the most determined of heroes. The friendship he had with Kate and Cordon was the source of his willpower; he was willing to pour every once of effort into helping his friends. And should anything get in the way of that well, you'll see.

As the Golurk rumbled violently from the buildup of its attack, Xis knew that now was the time to strike. He looked up at the towering behemoth with a confident smile and a determined look, and with the hammer held tightly in his claws, he ran towards the Golurk with a loud, battle initiating cry.

WHAM! Xis took a mighty swing at the legs of the Golurk, causing to lose its balance and began to fall backwards. In retaliation, it initiated its spin attack by spinning its entire body from the thigh up, but its swing arc was tilted like a ring of Saturn. This caused the attack to miss Xis entirely.

However, the spinning helped the Golurk to try to stabilize itself onto its two feet again, which meant that Xis had to attack again or risk being pummeled to Saturn.

"All right, one more swing!" Xis said while ducking, clutching his hammer tightly to his chest. "Let's do this!"

Mustering all the will that he had into his swing, he slammed against the legs of the Golurk with a heavy KERLUNK, which was enough to cause it to immediately fall backward, grinding its hammer against the ground like a circular saw. From the many repeated blows from before, the ground began to give way undernearth the Golurk's colossal mass, creating a hole that would cause it to fall into the darkness below. Xis looked over into the hole to listen for the eventual splash or thump, but after several seconds, he couldn't hear it. So he threw the hammer into the hole, and the impact came like a resounding KLONK! To Xis, that was the sound of a solid surrender, and he celebrated his victory with a little happy dance and showing the 'victory' sign with a large grin. He made sure to do this well away from the hole that swallowed the Golurk.

With the Golurk defeated, the vertical metal bars at the exit began to disappear, but not for the ones at the entrance. So Xis was forced to take the exit, as much as he wanted to go back to the other passageways to check on Kate and Cordon.

* * *

The exiting corridor had the same design as the one before the stairs where he tumbled, with its green grass extending throughout the entire length of the corridor. Well, almost.

Near the end of the corridor was a big splash of red and orange, representing an inferno of fire. There were some figures in the fire as black as charcoal, and they were thought to be Fire-Type Pokémon. They looked to be approaching with hostility towards the Grass-Type Pokémon, who were standing their ground to the very end. Fittingly, it marked the end of the Green Passageway.

At the end of the corridor was a door that had a glowing green jewel in the middle of it. This piqued Xis' curiousity, and he began to place his claw on it. Immediately, the door opened like shutters to reveal a bright light on the other side. He expected Kate and Cordon to be somewhere in that bright light, so he walked through the doorway with utmost confidence and optimism.

And that's all he really needed.

* * *

**AN: You have two options here; you can proceed to the Final Chamber or choose another passageway to see the other character's POV. It's your choice.**


	5. The Final Chamber

After traversing through their respective passageways, Kate, Cordon and Xis saw the bright light fade from their vision and discovered that the passageways brought them all together again. Immediately, Xis ran over and jumped onto Cordon, giving him a big hug.

"I missed you Cordon!" he exclaimed with utter joy and relief.

"Too much... missing!" Cordon replied in annoyance, trying to pry Xis off of himself. When he let go, Xis noticed that his left claw was covered in blue paint which came from Cordon's back. Perhaps Cordon leaned back on some blue paint?

Kate was waiting for Xis to hug him, while wearing a little mischievous grin. As Xis went to hug her, he became stuck due to her body being entirely covered in slime.

"I'm stuck!" Xis said while struggling to break away from Kate's body. "Let me go!"

"Now who's the one who wants to let go?" Kate grinned at Xis, and Cordon gave a similar grin. Then the two made a joint effort to free Xis from the slime, causing him to tumble backwards against Cordon and being pushed away straight afterward. A few seconds later, they then began to discuss what they had experienced in the passageways.

…

…

…

"...So the tomb wasn't lethal at all," Cordon summed up their discussion in a single sentence.

"I'm starting to get rather suspicious about this tomb," Kate remarked with her paw to her chin.

"Yeah, me too." Cordon replied as he looked at his paint soaked webbed hand, having touched his back to confirm it. "But let's explore the tomb a little bit more to confirm our suspicions."

"And when you mean 'explore', you mean loot," Xis said with a smug smile.

"You be quiet," Cordon hushed him, and walked down a small flight of sandstone stairs to a nearby casket. Xis ran down the steps to follow him, and Kate slowly walked down the steps, taking a good look at presumably the final chamber of the tomb.

The final chamber was a large, well lit room that had several golden caskets evenly spaced apart from each other. The walls had large, grandiose pillars finely crafted from the best quality sandstone. You can tell that the designers really loved the stuff. Other than that, there really isn't much else other than the flight of steps Kate was using and three closed doors that would've lead to the passageways.

Now standing beside the casket, Cordon took off the lid of the casket without hesitation and began inspecting what was inside. Xis was curiously looking at the flecks of gold flakes and dust flying everywhere as the lid was moved.

Inside the casket was a plain, mummified corpse and nothing else. Cordon picked up the body to see if there was anything of value underneath, but the corpse fell into pieces in his hands, causing Xis and Kate to screw up their faces and stick out their tongues in disgust.

"Looks like the mummification wasn't exactly well done," Kate said as she looked away.

However, the odour that emitted from the corpse wasn't as foul as what they'd expect from the decomposing pieces of the deceased. In fact, it smelt rather... fresh.

However odd it may seem, Cordon wilfully ignored the fact and began to inspect the other caskets. One by one, the trio inspected the caskets in a systematic order, only to find the exact same thing; just pieces of mummified matter and no treasure.

"What a rip," Cordon angrily muttered as he stormed away from the last inspected casket. "There's not a single valuable piece anywhere."

"And the gold from the casket is actually just more paint," Kate said as she looked at the floating gold flakes in more detail.

"We still haven't tried the one **over there,**" Xis pointed to an upright casket that was by itself, situated on a raised platform with two blazing torches on each side of it. The the top half of the casket was blue and yellow, and the bottom half was made out of authentic, solid gold. There might as well have a glowing neon sign that read "I'm Important!" pointing to it.

As soon as he saw it, he immediately leaped onto the platform and eagerly approached the casket. When Kate studied the design of the casket from afar, she hurried over to Cordon to restrain him from going any further.

"No! It's not what you think!" Kate shouted to Cordon.

"What? Is it like some sort of Zoroark Illusion or something?" Cordon replied sarcastically.

"That's not it!" Kate shouted, desperate to keep him away from the casket. "It's actually a-"

"WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY SLUMBER?" a voice roared from within the casket. The casket bore its menacing red eyes and sharp teeth, with four shadowy hands coming out of it.

"Way to go, Miss Shouts-A-Lot," Cordon said to Kate, with sarcasm of course.

The casket began to hover in the air, with its face continuously bearing its malevolent grin. It was now obvious to everyone that it was not a casket at all; but the Pokémon Con***rigus (we must keep this K rated, so let's call him 'Conny' until we know its real name.)

"YOU WILL PAY FOR TRESPASSING IN THIS TOMB," Conny boomed in his low, distorted voice.

"In cash or in credit card?" Xis asked, having caught up with the group. He was then given a small punch from Cordon.

"It's probably our LIVES, isn't it?" Kate took a jab at Conny. She ruled out any option of trying to reason with such a hostile sarcophagus.

"..."

Conny stopped for a second to process that bit, before lashing out at them with an illegal Tackle. Everyone jumped out of the way in time.

"Whoa! I didn't mean to push him that far," Kate said in surprise.

Conny then began to produce three eerie flames around him; one red, one green and one blue. He was intent of giving each of them a warm welcoming gift – how generous of him!

Xis wasn't so receptive of his generosity, as he jumped in between Conny and his friends while taking a defensive stance. Kate then began to discuss with Cordon her plans to counterattack. Using her superior intellect, it only took a fraction of a second to think one up.

"Cordon, can you throw some pebbles at the flames?" Kate whispered the plan to Cordon.

"I'll only need three," Cordon boasted as he scooped up some sandstone chips from the ground. He then leapt on Xis' head, in between his two quills and took aim at the flames circling around Conny.

The flames were growing larger by the second, but neither Xis nor Cordon were intimidated by them. Xis looked up at Cordon with a look of trust and assurance, and Cordon looked at Xis with hope... that he would stop moving around so much.

Apparently Conny was jealous of all this friendship biz, so he began to hurtle towards them with an illegal Body Slam, hoping to knock them over like a Jenga Tower. Cordon immediately jumped backwards of Xis while he defended against Conny by holding back his attack with his armored body. This caused to flames to stall in mid air, giving Cordon the opportunity to strike them with his scatter of stones.

He managed to strike them with perfect accuracy; even if it was still circling around, Cordon would've achieved that too. However, only one of the flames (the red one) was temporarily extinguished, and it flared up again in a matter of seconds.

"I think I see the pattern now," Kate nodded as she went to grab a few more stones.

"What pattern?" Xis asked Kate as he successfully negated Conny's attack and pushed him back some distance away.

"Problem is, Xis and I are pretty lousy shots," she continued as she glanced at Conny's circling flames. After a few seconds of observation, Kate noticed that the flames began to change their pattern.

Instead of having three flames of a different colour, all the flames were now the same colour, cycling from red to green to blue to red again. It was most likely Cordon's first attack that disrupted the pattern.

"On second thought, I think Cordon needs a chance to redeem himself," Kate smiled as she went over to unload the stones into Cordon's hands. Cordon gave a nod of understanding and he readied to take his second shot at the flames.

Conny's blue flames were humongous now, at the point where he would release them at any time. Xis braced and readied himself in anticipation, while Cordon stood a little distance away, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

Without warning, Conny shot all the flames at once towards Xis, their blue colour transitioning to red. That was when Kate shouted out her command to fire, and Cordon threw the stones as quickly as he could.

Xis was equidistant between Conny and Cordon, and he jumped out of way in time for the red flames and the stones to collide, causing four small mid air explosions. While Conny was distracted, Xis lunged at him and slugged him with a solid Needle Arm to its body, causing a sizable crack.

"OW!" Conny roared as recoiled back, slamming into a nearby opened casket.

"HAHA, TAKE THAT!" Xis shouted in an uncontrollably loud voice.

However, instead of tenaciously getting back up again like an end boss should, Conny remained idle and softly whispered a few 'ow's' to himself. Kate, Cordon and Xis were rather surprised at how sensitive Conny was, and went over to see whether it was genuine or just a ruse.

It was genuine. Conny was clenching his sharp teeth in pain as he rubbed the crack with one of his shadow hands. When Xis, Cordon and Kate gathered around him, he began to angrily ask them a question.

"Why do you have to be so mean?" Conny whimpered as he talked normally now.

"Mean?" Kate replied while raising her voice. "You were the one that tried to attack us!"

"But Cordon started it first. He was trying to steal from me!"

All eyes looked at Cordon with piercing glares. He just folded his arms and replied with an uncaring "Hmph."

"Hold on..." Kate resumed the conversation with Conny. "Did you just say 'Cordon'?"

"HOW DID YOU KNOW HIS NAME?" Xis questioned him.

"That's easy," Conny replied. "That's because of... Oh! I remember now!"

"Remember what?" Cordon asked about his sudden realization.

"I know all your names! You're Kate, you're Xis, and you're Cordon!" He pointed with his 3 shadow hands the correct Pokémon according to their name.

"So... how did you know?" Cordon asked.

"The boss told me that I would be expecting you here." Conny replied with the happiest grin as he could using his eyes.

The trio were rather shocked at this new piece of news that they all went wide-eyed.

"YOU HAVE A BOSS?" Xis exclaimed his surprise.

"Of course I do. The boss told me to build this place for some sort of special purpose. Something about Donphan Friction, if I heard correctly."

"So the inscriptions... and the paint... and the caskets..." Kate blubbered, shocked and creeped out from what she found out to be the truth.

"**Yup," **Conny cheerfully replied. **"This whole tomb is a fake."**

Kate, Cordon and Xis immediately fell to the ground anime style, twitching their legs. As soon as they got back up, they took a little bit of time to recover before continuing on with the conversation.

"So it looks like there isn't any treasure after all," Cordon said with a mix of disappointment and anger.

"Nope." Conny directly replied. "But you do get a consolation prize!"

Opening the lid of casket of his casket a tiny bit, Conny used one of his hands to grab and throw a tiny round button into Cordon's hands. It was white and plastic with a black triangle on it. Cordon decided to keep it.

"SO IF THIS TOMB IS A FAKE," Xis asked Conny in an unusually loud tone, "WHAT ABOUT THAT GIANT THING I SAW EARLIER?"

"Hmm... I have no idea what you are talking about," Conny said, trying to recall. "And can you please stop shouting?"

"OOPS, SORRY." Xis put his claws over his mouth in realization. With a muffled shout, he said "I JUST CAN'T CONTROL IT."

"I think I'm to blame for this," Conny apologized. "My personality does seem to rub off on other Pokémon. Especially when I shake hands with them. It'll go away in a while."

"I SURE hope so," Xis replied, still covering his mouth. He then realized his speech impediment had disappeared.

"Now that the tomb's purpose has been fulfilled, it looks like now is the time for all of you to leave," Conny said to the trio with a hint of sadness.

"Good," Cordon bluntly said. "I can't wait to get out of here."

Conny took out a device from inside his casket and pressed one of its buttons. This caused one of the walls to reveal an elevator situated between the two middle most pillars.

While Cordon ran into the elevator in a hurry, Kate and Xis stayed back to thank him for his efforts.

"Thank you for arranging this all for us," Kate thanked Conny in a formal tone.

"We had a lot of fun," Xis exclaimed enthusiastically. "Thanks Mister..."

"Conny. Call me Conny." the Coffin Pokémon revealed its real name (What a shocker.)

"I'm sorry that I hurt you, especially when you're so friendly." Xis said with a rather regretful feeling weighing down his chest.

"No need to worry, Xis. I've got an unlimited supply of bandages to fix that." Conny reached into his casket again to grab a roll of bandages and placed a small strip on top of the crack where Xis delivered the blow.

"Are... are you sure it's going to fix that crack?" Xis worryingly asked him.

"Hey, you'd better hurry up or I'll leave you to be the tomb's new additions." Cordon called over to Kate and Xis, leaning on the elevator wall with his hand while impatiently tapping his foot.

"Well, it's time to go," Kate said as she ran over to the elevator while looking back at Conny.

"See ya later!" Xis waved goodbye, without looking at where he was going. He bumped into the panel of lift buttons outside of the elevator, and with a brief glance, he saw that there was a button with a triangle pointing up and something missing underneath that. Hmm.

"Bye Kate, Xis and Cordon!" Conny waved at them with all four of his shadow hands. Then the elevator doors closed, and he was gone.

As the elevator made its way up, elevator music began to circulate throughout the elevator room. Kate was humming to the tune, Xis did a little dance and Cordon couldn't resist but to tap his foot.

As soon as the elevator reached the top, it burst out of the surface of the sand and opened its doors. The back wall of the elevator then forcibly pushed the trio out onto the sand before the elevator dove back into the underground.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Cordon sighed with his face slightly buried in the sand after he was pushed.

"I disagree. For our first adventure, it wasn't that bad!" Kate said while she spat out a tiny mixture of sand and slime.

"Ten out of ten, would visit again!" Xis exclaimed while he was lying on his back.

As the trio stood up, they currently found themselves in a midst of a giant sandstorm. In front of them was the entrance of the burial tomb they just entered, its trapezoidal shape as distinct as ever.

"So... now what do we do?" Xis asked Kate and Cordon the inevitable question.

"Let's go find the nearest settlement," Cordon suggested while peering into the distance like a Patrat for any familiar landmarks other than the burial tomb. However, the sandstorm made the visibility of the surroundings quite poor.

"I agree, but let's wait for the sandstorm to subside before we do," Kate rationalized.

"But where are we going to take shelter?" Xis asked.

As the trio looked around to find nothing but the burial tomb, it became pretty obvious where they were going.

"Ugh, not again." Cordon said with intense disdain.

"Come on, it'll only be for a few hours," Xis tried to convince him.

"It's not like we're going back into the passageways again." added Kate. "**We've seen everything** we needed to see in that tomb."

As Cordon gripped the white plastic button in his hands, he somehow didn't feel entirely convinced about the last statement. But he was convinced about going back in the tomb, because there really wasn't any other choice.

"Fine," he conceded. "Let's go."

"Great!" Kate said with a cheerful expression. With an assertive voice, she pointed at the tomb while shouting "Let's go into the tomb... because it's shelter!"

So Kate, Cordon and Xis entered the tomb a second time. The sandstorm continued to blow its swirling sand against the sturdy, but now not so isolated burial tomb.

* * *

**AN: ****In case you were wondering, when Xis picked up Conny's ALL CAPS tic, this is a reference to the ability Mummy, which changes the attacker's ability to Mummy upon physical contact.**


End file.
